Sonos users will have to continue using the current and hugely disliked iOS app, with the company's CEO making it clear that it's not possible to roll back to the older app any longer.
The Sonos app on an iPhone
Since its app update in May, Sonos has received frequent complaints about the revision, with users upset by a number of missing features and functionality. While the company CEO has already apologized for the disruption caused by the new app, there's apparently no way back for the app at all.
In an "Office Hours" Q&A session on Reddit on Monday, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence, continued the apology tour with assurances about the app. However, those assurances would not include rolling back the app to a previous state.
Spence admits that he had been hopeful of a release of the old app, referred to as S2, but it turns out that it's not possible. The problem is that it has gone too far adjusting other software elements to ever go back.
"The trick of course is that Sonos is not just a mobile app, but software that runs on your speakers and in the cloud too," Spence writes. "In the months since the new mobile app launched we've been updating the software that runs on our speakers and in the cloud to the point where today S2 is less reliable & less stable then what you remember."
After "extensive testing," Spence says that the re-release of S2 would "make the problems worse, not better."
Spence adds that, as a "silver lining," Sonos is now focused on getting the new software working properly for consumers.
As promised in a previous apology, changes are on the way, including making the set-up process of new products more reliable. The company is also keen to reduce the number of "something went wrong" errors that users encounter.